Civ V AI CIvilizations Expansion Rate

[Llama Newt]

So my partner and I have been playing Civ V for a while and for the last few games the AI opponent seems to spawn new cities at an almost ridiculous rate. The rapid expansion doesn't seem to benefit them at all as they end up ridiculously in the red in terms of gold throughout the game, yet they keep doing it. It doesn't seem to matter which Civ the AI is playing as; I've had it happen with the Zulu, Assyria, and Bismark.

Has anyone else had this problem? The AI Civs didn't used to do this, so now I'm wondering if there's a setting I've turned off accidentally that's making them do this, or if this is because of an update to the game.

[JaSzczur]

Different Civs have different set statistics as for how they will tend to behave (unless you play with random personalities).
https://civdata.com/
As we see in the 'Expansion' row, Shaka is omegaexpansive, Zulu are the most expansive civ in the game. Bismarck and Ashurbanipal are also quite expansive, a bit closer to the middle. Generally human players put more thought into their expansion and AI will more often just try to grab the land if it's free.

[The Rock God]

Originally posted by Llama Newt:

The AI Civs didn't used to do this...

I can assure you they have been doing this for (almost) nine years.

[Llama Newt]

Thanks folks.

[JEELEN]

Originally posted by The Rock God:

Originally posted by Llama Newt:

The AI Civs didn't used to do this...

I can assure you they have been doing this for (almost) nine years.

Not really. It depends on the particular game and the dififculty setting. I've played endless Prince level games where the AI couldn't be bothered to expand beyond 3 cities until mid to late game.

Also, it's mot a matter of 'statistics' (whatever that';s supposed to mean in this contect), but of parameters. And as far as I've been able to observe: a lot of randomness. E.g. for most games Napoleon just acts like a wuss, but there is the occasional game where he'll go crazy and have a conquering spree.

Zulus and Assyrians are mostly 'expansive' in the sense that they have an aggressive flavour. With enough rivals around they will go on the attack. If not, they will expand first. (Or not, because randomness.)

It's basically one of the reasons why in Civ 5 Prince level should not be equalled with 'standard'. Rather, King is.

Originally posted by Llama Newt:

Has anyone else had this problem? The AI Civs didn't used to do this, so now I'm wondering if there's a setting I've turned off accidentally that's making them do this, or if this is because of an update to the game.

You're right: the setting is called Difficulty Level.

[Kurosu]

The enemy AI will always try to build wide and will continue making cities until almost all of the map is covered with borders.

[JEELEN]

The sun always shines.

[PebKahn25]

Certain civs are biased to expand more, Gandhi rarely expands much, but Zulu are probably the most expansive civ. It all depends on which civs are in your game and random number generation. Each civ is given an "expansion" trait ranging from 1-10, but, each game the trait is randomized by up to 2 numbers away. E.G. if a civ has a trait of 4, it can vary from 2-6.

[Damsteri]

AI has also changed quite a lot in expansions. The default here in discussion is that we are always talking about the latest version (Brave New World) unless said otherwise. New players that might don't know that. All those three versions have different rules and work like different games.

AI was expanding most aggressively in vanilla version. AI just planted cities on a tight grid at minimum space between cities regardless of resources or terrain. AI was improved a lot in Gods&Kings expansion and was able to place cities more wisely. AI was very aggressive on G&K and was still quite expansive, but did the expansion better. AI is generally less aggressive and less expansive in BNW than in G&K and it seems that quite often they don't expand over 3-5 cities until mid/late game. AI actually can place cities much better in BNW than in previous versions and some are even worth capturing.